“No, but I’m pretty sure there’s laws against stalking people, so I suggest you find somewhere else to be.”
Dylan gathered his things from the ground and turned to his front door, jabbing a key at the lock with shaking hands. Angelo retreated and watched from a respectable distance, but when Dylan dropped his keys, the daft twat that had followed Dylan from the bus stop in the first place sprang to life again, and even his fatigue-addled legs betrayed his sanity.
He scooped up Dylan’s keys and jammed the biggest one in the lock. “There you go.”
“How is that fucking off?”
Despite the aggression lacing Dylan’s tone, the way his voice wrapped around the words erased the torturous morning they spent together in the stuffy Citizens Advice office and took Angelo back to the start—back to the basement room where the first he’d seen of Dylan was his leonine body, arched and ready.
Ready for me.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Dylan snapped. “Turning up at my work? Blasting me with shit that should’ve stayed at the club? Or following me home?”
“All of it . . . except, I didn’t turn up at your work on purpose.”
“No? So why did you sit through a twenty-minute interview without saying something then? That’s messed up to the nth degree. Now, get the fuck away from my house.”
Dylan crunched his key in the lock and opened the door. He marched inside and the door swung shut in Angelo’s face.
Defeated, Angelo backed away, the ache in his body returning with every step. Somehow, being close to Dylan had distracted him from the reason he’d wound up back in Romford without a penny to his name in the first place. He sank down on yet another nearby bench and put his head in his hands. Jesus. What the fuck had he just done? If Dylan had any sense, he’d call the rozzers. And being carted off by the police would just about top off Angelo’s day—week, month. Fuck it. The whole damn year had been shit.
The temptation to slump down on the bench and fall asleep was strong—it wouldn’t be the first time he’d slept outside—but it began to rain, and Angelo was perversely glad of the chill that came with it. The wind rattled through his tired bones and matched his mood. He took a deep breath and stood, but a hand closed around his arm before he could take a step.
“Why are you here?”
Angelo turned. Dylan was behind him, dressed in ripped jeans and an Iron Maiden T-shirt. It was such a contrast from the smart casual he’d worn to work that Angelo simply stared, as transfixed as he’d been when he’d found Dylan naked and waiting for him.
“Well?” Dylan shoved his floppy blond hair out of his face. His wrist was covered in distressed metal bracelets and grungy festival bands. His hand was elegant and smooth. Angelo wanted to kiss it.
He stepped back, raising his own hands in surrender. “I said I was sorry. I had no idea you’d be at my appointment this morning, and I only followed you when you got off the bus in front of me to apologise for losing my shit at you. I’m not a fucking stalker, and I’m sorry, okay? You’ll never see me again, I swear.”
“Angelo—”
“Mate, I’m embarrassed enough. Don’t make me say it again.” Angelo turned on his heel and walked away as the heavens opened in earnest. The clusterfuck his day had become felt surreal, and despite being sick of his own four walls, he couldn’t wait to get home and pretend it had never happened. Hell, he’d even give up on the memory of fucking Dylan if it meant he could escape the cold impatience in Dylan’s eyes now.
“Angelo, wait.”
Angelo kept walking. Fat raindrops soaked into his clothes and ran down his face. His one remaining pair of Nikes squelched in the puddles. But still he recoiled when Dylan grabbed his arm. “Get off me.”
“Why? You followed me all the way home and now I’m supposed to leave you alone?”
“You told me to fuck off, so I’m fucking off.”
“So why did you get in my face in the first place?”
“I already told you.”
“I know, but why? Why do you care how I felt about what you did in the office? It’s not like we ever had to see each other again.”
“Isn’t it?” Angelo cast a pointed glance around them. “We live in the same town. We’d have run into each other eventually.”
“Would we, though? My dad has lived on Faringdon Avenue for twenty years and I’ve never seen you before. I even used to buy lunch from the deli when I worked at Jack’s Barber Shop. I can picture your father, your mum . . . even someone I think is your sister, but never you.”
“That’s because I wasn’t there.”
“What? Never?”
“Not since I was fifteen.”
“Why not?”
“What do you care?” It was oddly satisfying to throw Dylan’s question back in his face, and it seemed that Dylan had no better answer for it than Angelo.
“I don’t understand . . . I don’t get it.”
Angelo wiped rain out of his face. “Get what?”
“How this fucking happened!” Dylan’s shout rang out, but no one looked their way, and after a moment, he tugged on his hair again. “Look, I’ve been going to the club for a couple of years now, and there’s no way that the other night was the first time you’ve fucked someone in the basement rooms—I can always tell—so it seems a little messed up that you screw me once and then turn up everywhere I go a week later.”
Angelo’s brain didn’t work as fast as it used to, especially on days like this that wouldn’t just end already. “Are you asking me if I engineered fucking you and then stalked you ever since?”
“I don’t know what I’m asking. I’m just confused. And freaked out. I’ve never seen anyone I’ve played with outside of the club.”
“Neither had I until this morning.”
Dylan stared at Angelo, his bloodshot eyes suddenly more intense than ever. “Don’t lie to me.”
“Why would I lie? If I really am a stalker, I’m a pretty shit one, given that you know everything about me and my family. No mystery there, mate, is there?”
“I guess not.”
“Right.” Angelo started to move away.
Dylan caught his arm again. “Don’t go.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.” Dylan’s grip on Angelo’s arm tightened. “Because it’s raining?”
Angelo laughed for what felt like the first time in a year. “If you’re worried about getting wet, it’s a little late for that.” He gestured at their drenched clothes and shivered. “I gotta get home before I bloody drown.”
A bus rumbling past drowned out Dylan’s reply, and his feet moved in the wrong direction. Belatedly, Angelo realised that Dylan was tugging him in the direction of his flat. “What are you doing?”
Dylan speared him with a determined frown. “I’m taking you home.”
“I live over there, remember?”
“I meant my home.”
“Why?”
Dylan yanked on Angelo’s arm a little harder. “Because we don’t know the answer to that question. Now come the fuck on.”
Chapter Three
Dylan closed the door behind them and leaned back on it, watching as Angelo turned a slow circle in the hallway, his gaze flicking around the mesh of urban and vintage décor.
“This place is nice.”
“This is the weirdest day ever,” Dylan countered, and it truly was. For years, he’d kept most facets of his life separate, but today they’d collided and his brain had caught fire.
“. . . you did more for me a week ago when I railed you at Lovato’s.”
Was that true? Thinking back over their meeting that morning, it probably was. Brilliant. So you’re a better shag than you are a debt counsellor. Guess Angelo can use a fuck-hot blowjob to pay his overdraft then.
Dylan shook his head to clear it, struggling to match the Angelo, who’d apparently chucked him all over the basement room mattress, with the exhausted
man he’d found in the interview room that morning. Both versions of Angelo Giordano were gorgeous, but what had happened in the eight hours since Angelo had dropped his bomb was all kinds of screwed up.
And now Angelo was in Dylan’s house. What the hell do I do now?
A hundred questions burned on Dylan’s tongue, but none seemed right. Water dripped from both of them onto the hardwood floor. Dylan watched the puddles grow until a violent shiver wracked Angelo’s slim frame and spurred him into action. “I’ll get some towels.”
He dashed to the airing cupboard and retrieved two towels, tossing one at Angelo when he returned to the hallway and pointing at the kitchen. “Come through.”
Angelo’s presence behind him was like a live hand grenade, and the silence that drowned them was too loud. Dylan flicked the switch on his wireless speaker as he passed. The Cooper Temple Clause drifted out, smooth and low, heady and deep, and did nothing to ease the scratchy friction in Dylan’s veins.
“The ‘Murder Song’? Are you sure it’s not you that’s the mad axe murderer?”
A dry chuckle caught in Dylan’s throat. He opened the fridge and found his last two bottles of Polish lager. “Here. It tastes like piss, but I make lousy coffee.”
“I’m sick of coffee. Been brewing it all day.”
Dylan had forgotten that. The deli that belonged to Angelo’s family made the best paninis in east London, but Dylan couldn’t picture him slaving over the press or wrestling with the ancient coffee machines it was famous for.
For better or worse, he could only feel Angelo’s hands all over him, gripping him, lifting him while his thick cock drove every last drop of—
“How long have you lived here?”
Dylan blinked and handed Angelo a bottle. “Six months. I lived in Vauxhall for a few years before that.”
A small smile fleetingly warmed Angelo’s face. “So you weren’t around this way for a while then?”
“Um, not as often. Why?”
“Because that explains why we didn’t run into each other at the club. I worked there for a year a while back, before I moved to New York.”
“I thought you said you hadn’t been here since you were fifteen?”
“No, I said I hadn’t worked in the deli since I was fifteen. I danced with the English National Ballet for four years—worked at the club for some of that. It kept me out of trouble, believe it or not.”
“Get in trouble a lot, do you?”
The ghost of a grin returned, laced with the kind of self-loathing Dylan had often seen in Sam when he talked about his childhood. “I’m not in trouble now,” Angelo said. “Or am I? You still look pretty pissed off.”
Dylan schooled his features. “I’m not pissed off. I’m fucking bemused. Aren’t you? What were you thinking when you recognised me this morning? Come to think of it, how did you recognise me this morning?”
Angelo licked his lips, his tongue moving slowly . . . sensually as it moistened the skin. Dylan was mesmerised and caught off guard when Angelo answered him.
“It was your voice.”
“But we didn’t speak at the club.”
“Yes, we did. I told you the safe word and you said you wouldn’t need it, and then, uh, later . . . you told me your name.”
Heat flooded Dylan’s veins. His memories of Angelo fucking him were vivid and raw, but he’d forgotten the brief words they’d shared, distracted by Angelo’s hands and the current they’d seemed to carry that night. “You don’t look anything like I thought you would.”
Angelo tilted his beer and took a long pull, his elegant neck working as he swallowed, his mouth glistening as he lowered the bottle. “I can’t decide if you think that’s a bad thing or not. You’re hard to read.”
That was rich coming from him, but Dylan let it slide, preoccupied by the idea that Angelo believed that revealing himself—however bizarrely it had occurred—was somehow a disappointment. Was he fucking serious? It was the fact that he was so goddamn hot that had freaked Dylan out in the first place. The bear of a man he’d imagined hadn’t materialised, but the moody, lithe dancer leaning against his kitchen counter was the stuff of wet dreams. “It’s not a bad thing. I’m just having trouble believing you’re real.”
Angelo chuckled. “Back at ya. I couldn’t believe my luck when I found you waiting for me in the bunker. It’s been a long time coming.”
“Yeah? Do you go downstairs a lot?” Dylan picked at the label on his beer bottle, hoping his question appeared innocuous.
Angelo eyed him, perhaps sensing that his bland tone hid the startling reality that whatever answer he gave would turn Dylan inside out all over again. “I hadn’t been to the club for more than a year before the other night. I can’t deny that the basement rooms are familiar—I helped set them up—but it’s been a while since I used them.”
“You set them up?”
Angelo shrugged. “Kind of. Tammy, the owner, did a secret ballot of the staff a few years back, asked us to describe our ultimate fantasy. Mine got picked out of the hat.”
It’s not just yours. Dylan rubbed his temples. There was so much he wanted to ask Angelo, but the abrupt collision of too many worlds was giving him a migraine. “Let me get this straight: You worked at the club when you were dancing in London, then you moved to New York and only came home when your father died?”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“What happened to your money? You have massive loans, but they’re not student debts, so I don’t understand.”
“Why are you asking about that? You’re not my advisor anymore, remember? You sent me back to the shithole across the road.”
The air shifted, but Angelo’s obvious irritation did nothing to ease the building desire in Dylan’s gut. “I did that before I knew who you were, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care.”
“I don’t want you to care.”
“No? So what do you want? Why are you in my house?”
Angelo put his beer bottle down and folded the towel Dylan had given him into a neat square, setting it carefully next to the empty bottle. “I’m in your house because you asked me to be. You never told me why.”
He had a point.
Judas Priest shattered the heavy air between them before Dylan could answer. He reached for his phone, and Sam’s scowling face flashed up on the screen. Dylan swallowed thickly. Until Angelo, only Sam had ever made him feel this way—like his skin belonged to them and not him. Like he couldn’t breathe until he touched them again. Fuck this. He silenced the call and set his phone face down beside Angelo’s towel. “I don’t know what I want.”
“Well it ain’t to talk to whoever just called. Isn’t a debt collector is it? ’Cause they were calling me 24/7 before I binned my phone contract.”
“It’s a friend, actually, but I can’t talk to him for a while.”
“Because you love him?”
Dylan snapped his eyes up to find Angelo gazing at him, his molten eyes shrewd, like Dylan’s every thought made perfect sense to him. “He’s my best friend.”
“Is he straight?”
“Mostly.”
Angelo smirked. “That’s the worst. Queer enough to hook up, but too straight to give a shit afterwards?”
“It’s not like that.”
“No? So how is it?”
Dylan wouldn’t know where to start, which was just as well, as it seemed that Angelo’s question was rhetorical. He stepped into Dylan’s personal space. For a moment Dylan wondered if he would kiss him, but he didn’t. His fist touched Dylan’s shoulder, and then he was gone. The front door banged a few seconds later, leaving Dylan to contemplate how he’d feel if he never saw him again.
* * *
Helen brought a plastic cup of sludgy instant coffee to Dylan’s desk. “I can see you’re upset that your mug got broken.”
“Hmm?” Dylan glanced up from his pile of financial statements. “Oh, thanks, but I’m okay, really. It was just a mug.”
Helen raised an eyebrow. “So why the long face? You’ve been quiet all week.”
I’m pissed off because the best fuck I’ve ever had came into my life in the most fucked up way possible, and I can’t see a way of fixing that. And by the way, he’s a client. “I’m a bit tired. I went to The Pit at the weekend. Haven’t quite recovered yet.”
That got rid of Helen. She was the nicest woman in the world, but Dylan’s passion for grungy metal music baffled her.
He went back to his paperwork and was instantly lost in the reason he’d been scowling all morning: He’d fucked up. Angelo’s paperwork had come back from the Romford office with a glaring snag that threatened to derail the plan Dylan had worked out with his Romford counterpart. A year ago, Angelo had made a payment to the deli, prioritising the family business over creditors he’d owed thousands to for longer. It would seem a small point to a layman, but Dylan had seen DROs refused for less.
“Do you want to call him?” the Romford advisor had asked, eager to get out of giving a client bad news. But Dylan had shut her down. His connection to Angelo was screwed up enough, and the sooner they took Angelo’s financial dire straits out of it, the better. Right. Because you’ll be BFFs after. And removing himself from Angelo’s case didn’t stop him worrying. Angelo had said little in his interview with Dylan, but the notes from his telephone consultation painted a picture of a desperate man with nowhere left to turn. Without the DRO, his creditors would hound him into the ground, and then what would he do? It had been six years since Dylan had endured his first client suicide, but it haunted him, even now.
The rest of the day passed in a haze of client meetings and phone calls to ruthless creditors. Dylan had learned to handle himself over the years, but he was still pretty strung out by the time he left the office. The train home from Stratford was packed with fellow commuters glad to escape the rat race for the weekend. Dylan tried to hitch a ride on their muted enthusiasm, but it was a lost cause. Over the summer, he’d spent most weekends with Sam and Eddie, and with that option out, he didn’t feel like facing his dad.
Dream: A Skins Novel Page 3